CHAPTER 12 – AMERICA CRUISE
05:08 (Seattle Time)
Thursday, February 17, 1944
Control room of the U-900
Off Cape Flattery, northwest point of Washington State
Entrance to Juan de Fuca Strait, Pacific Ocean
‘’Yes, it is Cape Flattery! We are finally arriving in our assigned patrol zone after nearly two months at sea, men.’’
The crewmembers manning the control room of the U-900 nearly sighed at those words from their captain: two months at sea was a long time, even in a submarine as comfortable as the U-900. However, they also knew that their mission was only beginning and that they wouldn’t see Germany again for at least another four months…if they returned at all. Ulrich von Wittgenstein then went to the chart table located aft of the periscopes and marked down his new location before calling to his side his second in command, Bruno Barber.
‘’Here we are, Bruno. We will now go up the Juan de Fuca Strait while staying in the deep channel. Stay at schnorchel depth for the moment and recharge our batteries to the maximum during the next two hours, until sunrise. Then we will go down to a depth of 150 meters and will continue on batteries at ten knots. Stay silent and keep a defensive only posture for the moment. I am going to go rest in my cabin.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän.’’
Leaving the control room and going aft, Ulrich went through the sonar section and the circulation space beyond it, to finally enter his suite, situated on the same deck as the control room. Even though his ‘suite’ covered only a total floor space of nineteen square meters split into three compartments, it still was unimaginably spacious compared to the accommodations of the captains of the older TYPE IX and TYPE VII boats, or of those of any other class of submarine around the World. Pushing open the door of his suite, Ulrich crossed quickly his small work office and entered his bedroom, where he quickly undressed before walking into the small adjacent bathroom, stepping into the shower stall and pulling closed its curtain before turning the faucets of the shower head. The spray of warm water helped him relax after the long hours spent in the control room, checking his navigation and being on the lookout for any possible accidental encounter with an American warship or patrol aircraft. While the radar, sonar and radio passive detectors had signaled to him numerous surface ships around him, he had not become nervous on that account: the Juan de Fuca Strait was one of the most frequented waterways in the World, linking the Canadian ports of Victoria and Vancouver, plus the American ports along the Puget Sound, to the Pacific Ocean. It was thus a strategically important venue in this war, which was the main reason why Ulrich and the U-900 were here. Toweling himself dry, Ulrich then thankfully went to his bed and laid down on it with a grunt of satisfaction. It took him only seconds to find sleep, being truly tired.
Eight hours later, after shaving and after eating breakfast at the officers’ wardroom, he was back in the control room, wearing like his men a relaxed, informal dress of turtleneck sweater and trousers. There, he found Leutnant zur See Heinz Blischke, the third watch officer, his most junior and least experienced officer. However, that was very relative, as most of the crew of the U-900 was very experienced by common standards. Blischke, while young, already had two war patrols under his belt and was, in Ulrich’s opinion, an intelligent and decisive officer with a very good potential to become one day a submarine commander.
‘’So, Blischke, anything special to report?’’
‘’No, Herr Kapitän, except for the fact that the traffic along the Juan de Fuca Strait is quite dense, on both sides. If we wanted to sink ships, we would have plenty of choice.’’
‘’And tell me why we are not sinking ships yet?’’ asked Ulrich, testing him. The young officer answered without hesitation.
‘’To exploit surprise to the maximum and get at the most difficult targets first, still undetected, Herr Kapitän. Once those targets are hit, then we can do methodical strikes according to our list of priority targets.’’
‘’Excellent, Blischke! You will one day be Captain of this boat.’’
‘’Danke, Herr Kapitän. You are too kind.’’
‘’But I meant it. Show me our present position.’’
Going together to the chart table, Blischke then pointed a dot on the chart representing the strait and the sounds leading to Vancouver and Seattle.
‘’We are here, some fifteen nautical miles short of the entrance to the Admiralty Inlet, which itself connects to Puget Sound. We should arrive at Point Wilson in a bit less than two hours, Herr Kapitän.’’
‘’Good! Have a second helmsman go up to man the surface helm station inside our forward underwater observation dome and go up with him. We will slow down and rise to a depth of fifty meters, where we will wait for a big, noisy ship heading towards the Puget Sound. Once we will have found one, we will stick to its keel and follow closely underneath it. Then, I challenge any hydrophone operator to be able to pick us up over the screw and machinery noise of that surface ship.’’
‘’Is the area of Point Wilson well defended, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’By the standards of 1910, yes. By today’s standards, not so much. However, our intelligence says that the Americans have added an underwater hydrophones listening station in Fort Worden, one of the three old coastal forts defending the entrance to the Admiralty Inlet. We have no information about possible underwater minefields or torpedo launch tubes there, but we will err on the side of caution. Call the second helmsman now.’’
‘’Right away, Herr Kapitän!’’ replied Blischke before walking to an intercom box. As he was doing his call, Ulrich went aft to the sonar section and looked over the shoulder of the duty sonar operator, examining his passive sonar display.
‘’Schneider, I need a big, noisy ship heading for the Puget Sound, so that we could stick under it while going down to Seattle.’’
‘’Well, I believe that I already have a good candidate for you, Herr Kapitän. We have nearby what sounds like a damaged warship heading east, probably going to the Bremerton Navy Yard for repairs: I evaluate it as a probable light cruiser and its machinery is sounding like a bag of broken bones. I can also hear the continuous noise of multiple pumps fighting some major leaks.’’
‘’A lame duck! Perfect! Connect with the helmsman and direct him towards that cruiser, so we can stick to its belly.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Kapitän!’’
Leaving the sonar section, Ulrich went to an intercom box near the attack periscope and grabbed its microphone, activating it.
‘’Attention all hands, this is your captain! We are approaching an enemy coastal defense point. Avoid all unnecessary noises and keep your voices down until further notice. That’s all!’’
Ulrich then followed his own directives and went to his cabin to put on over his boots felt slippers specially designed to minimize the noise of a person walking inside a submarine. With that done, he returned to the control room to see how his sonar man and helmsman were doing.
His men proved to be indeed true professionals and veterans of their trades and the U-900 was able to follow a mere thirty meters under the wounded American cruiser as the latter turned South, leaving the Juan de Fuca Strait to enter the Admiralty Inlet and continuing towards the Puget Sound and Seattle. Ulrich let himself relax a bit once they were well past the first group of American forts: the fox was now in the hen house, undetected. What helped him a lot now was the unusual depth of the waterway, with an average depth of over 140 meters and maximum depths that attained over 260 meters. By exploiting the deep-diving capabilities of his submarines and using its underwater observation domes and infrared scopes and projectors to visually navigate, Ulrich was going to be able to go deep to avoid both detection and enemy attacks. With the most danger now behind him, he ordered his submarine deeper and slower, letting the wounded cruiser plod ahead. He however kept the surface helm station manned, as he would soon need to get to shallower waters and check for the presence of anti-submarine nets, sea mines and other obstructions. His intelligence information package given to him in Lorient was fairly detailed, although a bit dated, and he had worked up from that package a list of targets arranged in order of priority and difficulty. The first targets were the ones needing maximum stealth, before he started the real ‘light and sound show’. The very first one on that list was the entrance of the Sinclair Inlet, which gave access to the Navy Yard Puget Sound, in Bremerton, just west of Seattle on the opposite side of the Puget Sound. Ulrich was planning to discretely lay a few sea mines there and thus block the access to the yard.
17:51 (Seattle Time)
Control room of U-900, at periscope depth in Rich Passage
Southern tip of Bainbridge Island, Puget Sound
‘’ALL STOP! ANTI-SUBMARINE NET AHEAD!’’
The warning by intercom from the surface helmsman station, at the top of the sail, made Ulrich climb quickly from the control room to the forward underwater dome. There, he effectively saw through the thick acrylic of the viewing dome the interlocked steel hoops of an anti-submarine net blocking the entrance to the Sinclair Inlet, which led to the Navy Yard in Bremerton. Looking at the depth sounder indicator, he grimaced at seeing that the bottom at the inlet entrance was too deep for his sea mines to be effective, them having to be sown at no lower a depth than 35 meters. His first intended objective was thus proving to be out of reach for him. He could of course wait for the net to be opened eventually to let pass a ship, but there was no way for him to know when that would happen, or how long he would have once inside the inlet until the net was opened again to let him get out of it. Mentally scratching off that target, Ulrich went back down to the control room, where he raised the search periscope in order to look at his surroundings above the surface. While he didn’t see any ship near him, he saw at once the nearby coast of Bainbridge Island, which formed the northwest side of the Rich Passage. Knowing through his intelligence package that the southwest tip of Bainbridge Island was the location of an old American coastal fort named Fort Ward, he concentrated his attention in that direction, using the last minutes of daylight before sunset. While he saw a few wooden buildings and some stone embankments on the island, he couldn’t see any coastal gun. However, something else prompted him into calling out loud his electronic warfare and intelligence officer, Leutnant zur See Werner Schultz, out of his transmissions and EW section.
‘’LEUTNANT SCHULTZ TO THE CONTROL ROOM AT THE DOUBLE!’’
Schultz promptly came to near the search periscope and came to attention.
‘’Yes, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’Look through the periscope, which is now pointed at what is supposed to be Fort Ward. I cannot see any guns there, but I see numerous radio antennas and masts, some being of rather unusual design. Tell me what you think of them.’’
The young officer, who had a diploma in physics and in electronic engineering, grabbed the handles of the periscope and glued his eyes against the binocular lens eyepieces. Ulrich saw him tense up after a few seconds of observation, but Schultz kept observing for nearly a minute before looking back at Ulrich, his expression sober.
‘’Herr Kapitän, those antennas are part of a long range radio listening station, the kind that listens to enemy communications.’’
‘’Are you sure?’’ Asked Ulrich, his interest fired up at once. Schultz nodded his head once at that.
‘’Very sure, Herr Kapitän: I could distinguish a number of rhombic antenna masts typical of such listening stations, plus a long range reception tower. This could be a very significant enemy installation for us.’’
Ulrich thought that over for only a few seconds before grabbing the nearest intercom microphone and speaking into it.
‘’MAJOR MARGRAFF TO THE CONTROL ROOM! MAJOR MARGRAFF TO COME AT ONCE TO THE CONTROL ROOM!’’
Putting down the microphone, Ulrich then smiled to Schultz.
‘’I think that this Fort Ward could be worth a discrete visit by our good Major Margraff and his men.’’
Less than twenty seconds later, Hugo Margraff ran inside the control room and presented himself to Ulrich.
‘’You wanted to see me, Herr Kapitän?’’
‘’I certainly did, my dear Hugo. Look through the periscope and examine the antenna park and buildings of Fort Ward. We may have something there worth a ground reconnaissance by your men.’’
Margraff looked through the periscope’s lens for a good minute, embracing as much as possible what was visible of the installations of Fort Ward before looking at Ulrich.
‘’I concur, Herr Kapitän. Do we have a map of that place?’’
‘’I have a general map of the Puget Sound and of the Seattle area, but not a detailed map of that Fort Ward. Come with Leutnant Schultz to the chart table, so that I could show you.’’
The three men moved quickly to the nearby chart table and took positions around it, bending over it as Ulrich pointed a spot on the map laid side-by-side with the maritime chart of the Puget Sound.
‘’We are presently just off the southwest tip of Bainbridge Island, near the location of Fort Ward. The waters around the island are quite deep, with a steep gradient right at the coastline. There is however this small underwater plateau at the southern tip of the island, where I can rest my U-900 on the bottom and still be able to use my periscope and schnorchel. What I am thinking of doing is to go rest there, then have you and your men go out of our airlock in frogmen’s suits, to swim to the shore and infiltrate Fort Ward, in order to look around it. If it turns out to be indeed a radio listening station, then it may constitute a valuable target worthy of some silent but deadly action on our part. You would thus need to use silenced weapons for that reconnaissance. Will you want to bring all of your men with you for such a job, or do you prefer to keep your team small?’’
‘’If I may have to switch to direct action, then I will definitely want all my men to be available, Herr Kapitän: in this case, numbers may help to prevent the enemy from raising the alarm about our presence.’’
‘’Very well! Sunset is due in a few minutes only. By the time that I have put down our submarine on that small plateau, night will have fallen, something that will help you infiltrate Fort Ward. It is however imperative that our presence here near Seattle should stay unknown to the enemy for as long as possible: we have a number of other targets that I would like to hit tonight while still benefiting from the element of surprise. Don’t hesitate to be ruthless and do not allow anyone to raise the alarm during your reconnaissance. Other than that, you will have full liberty to act as you deem fit, Major. Of course, if you can capture documents of interest for our good Leutnant Schultz, don’t hesitate to do so.’’
‘’I will bring waterproof bags with me, Herr Kapitän.’’ assured Hugo Margraff. ‘’With your permission, I will now go get my men ready for this mission.’’
‘’By all means, Major.’’
Hugo quickly walked out of the control room and went aft, then down by one level, ending on the submarine’s upper deck. A few more steps aft brought him to the compartment reserved for the living accommodations of embarked passengers, which contained a total of ten bunks, with individual effects lockers and one communal table. Before entering that compartment, Hugo knocked on the doors of two petty officers’ cabins next to it, in which three of his men lived.
‘’EVERYBODY TO THE TEAM’S COMPARTMENT: MISSION BRIEFING!’’
He then entered the living compartment and shouted out.
‘’MISSION BRIEFING! ASSEMBLE AROUND THE TABLE!’’
Within a minute, he had all thirteen men of his embarked commando team around him, including his second-in-command, Feldwebel Franz Stein, a veteran of five submarine patrols. Smiling at his men, Hugo made an announcement in a jovial tone.
‘’Well, men, the tourist cruise is over! It is now time to get back to the good old looting, burning and killing routine. We are going to exit underwater in frogmen’s gear in order to go on an armed reconnaissance of a ground military installation that appears to be a sort of radio listening station. We are to stay discreet, but we will not hesitate to kill any witness we meet, in order to prevent them from raising the alarm. We may also get to sabotage some radio equipment and steal classified documents during that mission. We will bring silenced weapons, handheld radios and waterproof bags with us. I want all of you ready to exit the submarine in forty minutes. Let’s move, men!’’
19:07 (Seattle Time)
Forward airlock of U-900
Just before pushing the button that would make the airlock flood, Hugo pressed the intercom button linking it to the other airlock, in the aft part of the sail, and spoke briefly.
‘’Feldwebel Stein, you may now flood your airlock and go out with your men. I am flooding out my airlock now.’’
‘’Understood, Herr Major!’’ replied the senior NCO via the intercom. Closing the protective panel of the intercom set, Hugo then flooded his airlock. With six men at his back, he opened the heavy, spring-loaded outer access hatch of the airlock and swam out, trailing behind him at the end of a short rope a waterproof bag containing his weapons, ammunition and special equipment. Breathing through his rebreather apparatus, which did not let out telltale bubbles, he closed back the airlock’s hatch and led his commandos towards the nearby underwater cliff marking the southern shoreline of Bainbridge Island, swimming vigorously with his rubber fins. Climbing up the cliff with his hands, he soon let his head emerge slowly from the water and quickly looked around him, seeing only the grass and bushes of the shoreline. He hurried out of the water and crawled to the nearest set of bushes, where his men joined with him. Franz Stein and his own team also joined up with him there, allowing Hugo to give a few orders in a near whisper.
‘’Okay, time to get our weapons and gear out of our bags. We will leave our breathing apparatus, masks and fins here but will keep on our diving suits, in order to save time in case we have to dive back in a hurry. Remember: be ruthless and don’t let time to anyone to raise the alarm. Use as much as possible your knives and silenced pistols first but have your silenced StG44 assault rifles ready as well, just in case.’’
A couple of minutes were enough to get their weapons and gear out of their waterproof bags and to camouflage quickly their diving equipment before they started walking in single file towards the Northwest, Hugo in the lead.
The fourteen Brandenburg Regiment men had only to walk for about 200 meters through a dense forest before arriving at the edge of a large clearing containing three sets of four giant radio masts linked by overhead wires. Further to the West, Hugo could see the lights of a number of buildings situated inside the fort’s perimeter. Looking with his binoculars for the presence of armed sentries, he saw only a total of two soldiers guarding the main entrances of two separate wooden buildings, but didn’t see any sign of roving patrols. Signaling Stein to approach him, he then whispered to him while pointing one of the guarded buildings.
‘’You and your men go to that guarded building at our ten o’clock and eliminate quietly the sentry at the entrance before entering and seeing what is inside. You will kill anyone that you meet. Once you will have explored that building, go to the next ones to its left, one after the other. I will do the same with the buildings to the right of the one I will approach first. Questions?’’
‘’No, Herr Major.’’
‘’Then, let’s split!’’
The two groups of seven men then separated, their diving suits making them dark silhouettes that were nearly impossible to see until a half-moon would rise in nearly six hours.
Still leading his group, Hugo cautiously approached his target building from one side of it, at an angle that would add some more difficulty for the sentry to see him. After twenty minutes of walking at a crouch or crawling, he finally came to touching distance of one side of the two-storey wooden building, on which four illuminated windows were. Taking out a small, folding periscope and extending it, he raised its upper lens to just past the sill of the nearest window to him and looked through the lower lens. He frowned on seeing that the room inside which he was now looking was occupied by a mix of men and women, all wearing American Navy uniforms and manning numerous radio sets: despite his years of experience at killing enemy soldiers, he still felt reluctance at having to kill women. However, the present circumstances would not let him any other choice but to be indiscriminate about his killing tonight. There was also the fact that these Americans wore navy uniforms. This was supposed to be an army fort. Thinking about it, he concluded that this fact only reinforced the suspicions about this place being a secret radio monitoring station. Looking to his left at his nearest man, he whispered to him.
‘’The personnel here includes women. They will have to be killed as well, without hesitation. Pass the word.’’
As Heinrich Bayerling himself turned around to pass his directive, Hugo activated the microphone switch of his headset, connected to the portable VHF radio hooked to his belt.
‘’Raider One to Raider Two: be advised that this fort is being manned by navy personnel, including women. My orders about killing anyone without hesitation stand.’’
‘’Copy that, Raider One!’’ Answered nearly at once Franz Stein. Moving in succession to the three other windows on this side of the building, Hugo used his periscope to have a look inside, each time finding the rooms occupied and active. Up to now, both the number of active radio operators on shift and the quantity of radio and electronic equipment he could see indicated a major radio installation inside Fort Ward. Walking slowly to the corner of the building near where the sentry stood, Hugo used again his periscope to see where he exactly stood. The American soldier was actually standing a few paces in front of the main entrance and was armed with a GARAND semi-automatic rifle. The American suddenly searched into a pocket of his overcoat and extracted from it a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. Seeing a good opportunity presenting itself to him, Hugo took out his combat knife and quietly advanced on the American as the latter turned his back to him, trying to shield his lighter from the cold wind while lighting his cigarette. Hugo was on him before the soldier could light his cigarette and, covering his mouth with one hand while digging his knee in the small of the American’s back, planted deep in one jugular his knife before pulling it hard towards the opposite jugular, sectioning both jugulars and wind pipe in one quick motion. The unfortunate man jerked for a couple of seconds, his gurgles mostly smothered by Hugo’s hand while blood shot out of his cut arteries. He then became completely inert, at which point Hugo laid him down on the grass. A brief look at the soldier’s uniform then told him that his victim had been a U.S. Marine, something that tended to confirm the status of this fort as being presently a U.S. Navy installation. Dragging the dead man along the side of the building from where he had come, Hugo then handed the steel helmet and rifle of the Marine to his youngest soldier, Schutze Max Landau.
‘’Take these, along his overcoat, and play sentry in his place. Kill with your silenced pistol anyone approaching you.’’
‘’Yes, Herr Major!’’
Next, Hugo returned to the main entrance and took in his right hand his silenced Walther P 38 pistol, indicating to his men behind him to do the same. Once they were all ready, Hugo opened the door and walked in at a normal pace, as if he belonged here. The room he entered proved to be some kind of reception room cum administrative office, with three women in navy uniforms busy typing documents. All three twisted their heads to look at him as he walked in, quickly followed by his men. The women’s looks of curiosity instantly changed to that of horror and fear at the sight of their frogmen’s suits and silenced pistols, but none of them had the time to scream before being shot in the head with single bullets, with the noise of the firings about the same volume as that of Champagne bottles’ corks popping out. Hugo couldn’t help contemplate with bitterness for a short moment the young woman he had just killed. He however quickly shook himself back to mission mode and made signs to half of his men to follow him through the door giving in to the rest of the building, with his three other men climbing the stairs leading to the upper floor. Finding himself inside a corridor that ran the length of the building and which was lined up with a total of eight doors, Hugo went to the two nearest doors, situated opposite of each other, and read the plates fixed to them. One said ‘Radio Monitoring Room # One’, the other ‘Crypto Room # One’. Using hand signals only, he pointed the radio monitoring room to Hans Arnim and Johannes Schwälbe, then signaled Max Hohenbascher to follow him inside the crypto room. Acting in concert, the two pairs of German commandos opened their respective doors and quickly entered medium-sized rooms, each containing an impressive amount of electronic equipment and work stations. While the radio monitoring room was occupied by four women and three men, the crypto room contained five women and one man, the latter a navy officer. Shooting as quickly as accuracy allowed, Hugo and his three men coldly shot all the Americans in the head, helped in this by the fact that many of the Americans were wearing headsets and were concentrating on listening or writing, thus delaying their reflexes. However, despite the silencers fitted to their pistols, this still made quite some noise, enough to attract one male NCO out of one of the adjacent rooms. Hugo however shot him dead before he could make more than three steps in the hallway. Quickly changing his now empty magazine for a full one, Hugo hurried to the room from which the American had come out, where he could hear female voices expressing concerns and wondering what was going on. To his deep annoyance, his entrance into that room triggered a chorus of high-pitch panicked screams before he could even start shooting. Now realizing that discretion had just gone out the window, he emptied again his pistol, killing the three men and four woman, all unarmed, that had been working at a